


Until Both Were Gone

by RubyLipsStarryEyes



Series: In a Manor of Speaking [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adult Hermione Granger, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Heavy Angst, Hermione's Nook's Flufftober 2020, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Regret, Sad, Sad Lucius Malfoy, Sad Severus Snape, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Severus Snape Lives, Severus Snape-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:08:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27115166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubyLipsStarryEyes/pseuds/RubyLipsStarryEyes
Summary: Severus didn't realize the warmth they brought to his life until they were both gone.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape, Hermione Granger/Severus Snape, Lucius Malfoy/Severus Snape
Series: In a Manor of Speaking [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950238
Comments: 14
Kudos: 60
Collections: Hermione's Nook Flufftober 2020





	Until Both Were Gone

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hermione's Nook Flufftober Fest on Facebook. 
> 
> Oct 19 prompt- Watching the sunset.

Severus swirled the whiskey around in his glass. It tasted expensive, but it was from Lucius’ private stock. It probably cost more than anything you’d find commercially available to anyone less than royalty. But it was sorely needed. 

Lucius lurked somewhere behind him, though Severus resolutely faced the window, the golden sunset illuminating the gardens in a celestial glow that was at odds with his mood. 

Inside his chest, a swirling black hole of hopelessness and despair that even a dementor would have been proud to create ate at him. It was the kind of anguish he hadn’t felt since Lily’s death, and again, it was  _ his fault.  _ At the very least, this time his own stupidity hadn’t cost the life of the woman he loved, but this time she’d actually loved him  _ back,  _ which in all reality, might have made it worse. 

Part of him was amazed that Lucius hadn’t attempted to kill him yet. He loved Hermione as much as Severus did, and Severus had driven her away from them both. He’d often thought about the night of the Battle of Hogwarts. He’d expected to die that night. Part of him had  _ hoped  _ to die that night.    
  
It wasn’t until he’d woken in the hospital bed, barely alive and angry as hell that he wasn’t six feet under. And then he had to endure the agony of recovery, the trials, the truth coming out, and the exoneration and aquittal, and then the fucking Order of Merlin. He hadn’t wanted any of it. He wanted peace, and quiet, and privacy as he healed; his body, mind, and soul had been torn into so many pieces he might as well have been a human jigsaw puzzle rather than a man, and it had been Lucius to provide what he’d needed. And slowly-- ever so slowly-- he’d come around to living again. 

And he owed it to the curly-haired royal pain in the arse that had saved his godsforsaken life in the first place. 

  
He took a sip of the whiskey, and let the burn bring him back to the present. The sun was sinking ever lower, now brushing the horizon. He stood there, in that window as the sun sank lower and lower. Less than half of the sun was still visible when Lucius finally spoke. He was closer than Severus had anticipated, and spoke in a low tone.    
  
“I don’t know what to do from here, Severus.” His voice was steady, but..  _ Sad.  _ He’d never heard his oldest friend sound like that, and guilt twisted in his stomach. He didn’t say a word, simply set down his glass and opened his arms. And for the second time that day, Severus held Lucius. He continued to hold him, his onyx eyes looking unseeing out over the manor grounds as the sun slipped beneath the horizon.    
  
It was ironic, he thought, that the sun managed to mean less, to not provide as much warmth, or light as one, curly-haired, royal pain in the arse had. And he hadn’t seen it until they were both gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> I swear it has a happy ending, just bear with me until I can reorder and fix this series into a cohesive story. Please don't hate me. 
> 
> XOXO, comments and kudos give me life.


End file.
